After The Clearances

by Alison Layland

The Seeders, a self-sufficient community, flee to a remote Welsh island to escape the government's repressive Clearances, and cultivate a new way of living. But 13-year-old Seeder, Glesni, suspects her family is hiding something. When Sandy, a vengeful mainlander, washes ashore, Glesni is drawn to search for a truth that threatens to put those she loves at risk and maybe even jeopardize the whole community. Meanwhile, on the mainland, fugitive Winter finds an unlikely friendship with a wild woman living off the land. How are their fates connected?

Set in 2056, After The Clearances is a gripping cli-fi novel that explores the impacts of climate change through a story of loyalty and revenge.

"A bold novel brimming with ideas. Prepare to be provoked." Martine Bailey, The Almanack

356 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 10, 2025

About the author

I am a writer and translator, and have told myself stories for as long as I can remember.
Raised in Newark and Bradford, and having lived in various places around the UK, I now live in the bordelands between Wales and Shropshire.
Someone Else's Conflict, my debut novel, was featured as a Debut of the Month for January on the Lovereading site https://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/13.... My second novel, eco-themed psychological thriller Riverflow, was Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month in August 2019. I have also translated a number of successful novels from German and French into English.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AlisonLayland...
Twitter: @AlisonLayland

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having loved Alison Layland's previous novel, RIVERFLOW, I was prepared to admire her new book just as much, and am certainly not disappointed. She follows some of those earlier characters into the future (2056), though this link only gradually becomes apparent; the novel can just as easily be read as a standalone. We're fully immersed in the world of the Seeders, isolated on their remote Welsh island, Ynys Hudol, operating as a deliberative democracy with the aim of living both sustainably and independently from the mainland, where pressures of land and water have resulted in harsh restrictions. Inevitably there are tensions and disagreements in the community, especially when a newcomer, Sandy, arrives, with reasons not everyone accepts. Gradually we learn of a devastating incident in their recent past (our future) in which key characters are accused of treachery; this story alternates with the impressionistic viewpoint of a lone woman, Bela, and her encounter with a fugitive, known as Winter. Gradually and compellingly these two strands come together in what's both a thrilling plot and a powerful exploration of the most important issue of our times: how will we adapt (or fail to adapt) to the climate emergency that will threaten our lives in both predictable and unforseeable ways? Highly recommended: a terrific cli-fi novel that I hope will reach a large readership.

[Isobel Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!! Probably the best book I've read this year

[Fiona Warburton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author is local to me and I went to the book launch with my book club. It is set in the near future (2050s) and set on a small island in rural Wales. Climate change is making life more difficult, and there has been multiple civil conflicts and terrorist attacks, most of Wales has been ‘cleared’, compulsory relocations to urban England to help focus limited services, but a small community is living self-sufficiently off the coast and under the authorities’ radar. It is written from multiple points of view – a 12 year old girl who was the first to be born on the island once the community was established, and a woman who was trying to cross from the Welsh mainland to Ireland in a small boat, but got washed up on the island, and a woman living alone in the woods on the mainland.
It’s not very long, about 300 pages, and there is a lot in it, so it had the feel of only scratching the surface, and it had the potential to be longer to go into back stories in more detail, or possibly a series.
It was interesting, and not all bleak – there is some Welsh language in it, but I am a Welsh speaker so got it. Anything important was obviously translated or in English, but understanding those bits did give it an extra depth.

[Judith Barrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read and enjoyed Riverflow - Alison Layland's previous novel - I was looking forward to reading After The Clearances. I wasn’t disappointed; she writes in a descriptive style that immediately evokes a scene, an emotion – that draws the reader in immediately.
Although I should say at the outset that I am not an avid fan of the dystopian genre, this book is not a portrayal of misery and terror, it’s a considered and thoughtful reflection on what could happen if the human race continues to abuse the world in which we live, a time of a more subtle underlying fear and uncertainty.
This is a story of a close-knit community on Ynys Hudol, a small island off Wales, and set thirty years in the future. These are people who are required to abide by the established strict rules, the Seeds of Change, having to deal with previously unknown and difficult circumstances; characters with all the diverse complex human qualities and personalities that we, as readers feel we already know and understand. They are no different from us. It’s a thought-provoking consideration.
It’s inevitable there is strife, arguments, compromises; never more so than when another character, someone from the mainland is rescued and brought to the island. Sandy is initially an enigma, whose story is only gradually revealed. This character provides the thread that connects and weaves through the second accompanying plotline in a gradual but inevitable revelation of what went before … what is the background to the story.
The author changes her style of writing this story, when the stark reality of life lost forever is shown through the perspective of Bela, a young girl living alone in remote hidden cottage on the mainland. Her determination to speak only Welsh in an attempt to retain her heritage is an interesting twist to the plot.
This character, the background she represents, acts as a conjoining link between past and present and the secret that ties together the two storylines.
The dialogue is completely believable, the descriptions of the settings evocative, the plot intriguing.
I don’t like to give spoilers in my reviews, so I’ll leave it to future readers to discover this unusual and absorbing book for themselves. Needless to say, I thoroughly recommend After The Clearances to anyone who enjoys a well-told story packed with multi-layered characters.

[Alex Craigie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the Clearances is one of those novels that has it all. It’s profoundly moving, beautifully written, full of intrigue and threat that kept me gripped to the end, and it’s an intelligent and worrying prediction of our possible future.
The book begins with an entry in a notebook by Glesni who is a young girl of thirteen and the primary narrator. It is 2056 and she writes about her worries concerning ‘what we have – or perhaps, and I hate to say this, what we had.’ From this point we are aware that there is a lot at stake here.
The author has done a wonderful job of creating a plausible future where we have spent so much time dependent on our devices that we know longer have that connection with nature or what’s happening in the real world. We’ve ignored the evidence of climate change until the waters are rising, food is scarce and pandemics are a constant worry.
Into this future, we come across Ynys Hudol – a community of like-minded people who have crept back to a remote Welsh island to live below the radar of the central government. They are a democratic group and have developed a new life to cope with the changing world and base it on the principles of Empathy-Humility-Frugality. When a stranger arrives with her own agenda, secrets from the past threaten the simple happiness of all of them.
There are several narrators and their viewpoints vary greatly. Each comes across as distinct and well-rounded, as do the other main characters in the book. Glesni’s enthusiasm, naivety and bewilderment are captured so well. I loved Taid (Glesni’s grandfather) and needed to know what he was hiding. Bela is a wondrous creation of a young, isolated woman who is uneducated in the academic sense but fully connected to the natural world. Everything about Bela is authentic and her thought patterns are innovative and endearing.
This is a terrific read and fully deserves five glowing stars.

[Thorne Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an apocalyptic future of crisis and conflict, can one small community really hope to set things right with a vision of a renewed Eden? After The Clearances is thought-provoking, unsettling and ominous, set thirty years in the future, when so many things have fallen apart. It could be termed dystopian but maybe dystopia has become normality now. Political aggression, epidemic and climate crisis have led to division rather than outright collapse. Wales has been brought to heel by clearance, but a small group of idealistic resisters have formed a community on a small island, trying to establish a more sustainable way of living. This could be a utopian image of brotherly love and care for the planet, but humans aren't that simple or that pure. Even the community on Ynys Hudol, supposed to be based on shared ideals, is peopled with complex, contradictory characters because that’s how people are. Some are zealots, some are compromisers, some are practical, some are visionary, some are hard-working, some are lazy, and some really don't belong. Never forget that every Eden has its own serpent.

[Mandi A]

Can you get this onto Borrowbox? Have downloaded Someone Else's Conflict from there so hope to be able to read this one soon. I live in North Wales, it's brave to write about Wales if you aren't born here so interested to see what you have done